Tag: high pressure sodium

Has anyone else noticed how Alliant Energy is gradually replacing our orangish-white-light streetlights with bluish-white-light ones? The orangish-white-light streetlights are high-pressure sodium (HPS) with a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 1900K, whereas the bluish-white-light streetlights that are replacing them are LED with a CCT of 4000K, and, most notably, they are two and a half times as bright.

Even though I have written to both Alliant Energy and the City of Dodgeville, nothing has changed.

My questions, which are still unanswered:

What is the justification for increasing the streetlighting illumination level by two and a half times over what it has been for decades?

Why are we going from 1900K to 4000K (cold white), when 2700K or 3000K (warm white) is readily available and being used in many communities in the U.S. and Canada?

This same transformation is happening in Mineral Point, and probably many other communities in SW Wisconsin as well.

Is anyone else noticing how this is profoundly changing the rural character of our nighttime environment? Is anyone else concerned about this? The increase in glare and light trespass onto neighboring properties from these new LED lights is quite noticeable to me, even though they are nominally full-cutoff. Why? They are too bright, and too blue.

If anyone locally is reading Cosmic Reflections (and sometimes I wonder if anyone is…), and if you have noticed and are alarmed by these streetlighting changes, please contact me on blog or off blog (oesper at mac.com) and let’s meet and discuss a plan of action. Something needs to be done before it is too late and we are stuck with this very negative change to our nighttime environment.

One by one, all of our warm white lights are being replaced by cold, harsh, bluish-white LEDs. And it is happening fast.

Everywhere. In our streetlights, our workplaces, even our homes. How do you like looking into those blue-white vehicle headlights as compared with the yellow-white ones we have been using since the automobile was invented?

LED lighting is the way of the future, don’t get me wrong, but we should be specifying and installing LED lights with a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 2700K or 3000K—with few exceptions—not the 4000K or higher that is the current standard.

Why is 4000K the current standard? Because blue-white LEDs have a slightly greater luminous efficacy than yellow-white LEDs. Luminous efficacy is the amount of light you get out for the power you put in, often measured in lumens per watt. But should luminous efficiency be the only consideration? What about aesthetics? In addition to luminous efficacy, there are other, more significant ways to reduce power consumption and greenhouse gas emissions:

Use the minimum amount of light needed for the application; no need to overlight

Use efficient light fixtures that direct light only to where it is needed; near-horizontal light creates annoying and visibility-impairing glare and light trespass, and direct uplight into the night sky is a complete waste

Produce the light only when it is needed through simple switches, time controls, and occupancy sensors; or, use lower light levels during times of little or no activity

Even the super-inefficient incandescent light bulb (with a CCT of 2400K, by the way), operating three hours each night uses less energy than the light source with the highest luminous efficacy operating dusk to dawn. Think about it.

In my town, as in most now, the soothing orange 1900K high pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights are being replaced with 4000K LEDs. That’s a big change. It will completely transform our outdoor nighttime environment. Warm-white compact fluorescents are 2700K, and even tungsten halogen bulbs are 3000K. Do we really want or need 4000K+ LEDs?

We are currently witnessing a complete transformation of our illuminated built environment. Not enough questions are being asked nor direction being given by citizens, employees, and municipalities. The lighting industry generally wants to sell as many lights as possible at the highest profit margin. We as lighting consumers need to make sure we have the right kind of light, the right amount of light, and lighting only when and where it is needed.

Higher color-temperature lighting of 3500K or higher is often specified for office lighting during the day to more closely match daylight color temperature, but all to often this type of lighting is also being specified for nighttime use. Lower color temperature lighting of 2700K or 3000K should be used for residential lighting and any other lighting that is primarily being used after sunset, such as streetlighting, parking lot lighting, and security lighting.

A new bright white LED streetlight made its debut in Dodgeville, Wisconsin on Friday, November 3, 2017, and it isn’t pretty.

The white-light LED streetlight is located at the NE corner of W. Washington St. & N. Johnson St. in Dodgeville. The illumination level on the ground peaks at 3.15 fc. An existing orange-light high pressure sodium streetlight at the SW corner of W. Division St. & N. Virginia Terrace peaks at 1.23 fc, which is typical.

Even though the reduction of uplight and near-horizontal light (i.e. “glare”) from this luminaire is a welcome improvement, an illumination level 2.6 times as bright as before is neither welcome nor justified. Furthermore, lower illumination levels may be acceptable when using white-light LED luminaires in comparison with high pressure sodium (Glamox n.d.). More research is needed on the effect of spectral composition on both brightness perception and, more importantly, visual acuity at various illuminance levels.

I do not have an instrument to measure the correlated color temperature (CCT) of this luminaire, but visually it looks to me to be around 4000 K, which is too blue. I will check with the City of Dodgeville and report back here. The International Dark-Sky Assocation (IDA n.d.) and the American Medical Assocation (AMA 2016) recommend using “warm white” LEDs with a CCT no higher than 3000 K, with 2700 K preferred.

As Dodgeville (and many other towns and cities) are planning to replace their streetlights with LED luminaires, it is imperative that we useLEDs with a CCT (correlated color temperature) of 3000 K or less (Jin et al. 2015). This is a “warm” white light (similar to incandescent) rather than the “cold” blue-rich light often seen with LEDs. Outdoor LED luminaires often come in at least three “flavors”: 3000K, 4000K, and 5000K. For example, American Electric Lighting’s Autobahn Series. 5000K luminaires provide the bluest light, and should be avoided at all costs. Of these three, 3000K would be best, and if 2700K is offered, use that.

Why does this matter? On June 14, 2016, the American Medical Association issued guidance on this subject.

High-intensity LED lighting designs emit a large amount of blue light that appears white to the naked eye and create worse nighttime glare than conventional lighting. Discomfort and disability from intense, blue-rich LED lighting can decrease visual acuity and safety, resulting in concerns and creating a road hazard.

The detrimental effects of high-intensity LED lighting are not limited to humans. Excessive outdoor lighting disrupts many species that need a dark environment. For instance, poorly designed LED lighting disorients some bird, insect, turtle and fish species, and U.S. national parks have adopted optimal lighting designs and practices that minimize the effects of light pollution on the environment.

Recognizing the detrimental effects of poorly-designed, high-intensity LED lighting, the AMA encourages communities to minimize and control blue-rich environmental lighting by using the lowest emission of blue light possible to reduce glare. The AMA recommends an intensity threshold for optimal LED lighting that minimizes blue-rich light. The AMA also recommends all LED lighting should be properly shielded to minimize glare and detrimental human health and environmental effects, and consideration should be given to utilize the ability of LED lighting to be dimmed for off-peak time periods.

Incidentally, for your residential lighting needs, a good local source for LED bulbs that are not blue-rich is Madison Lighting. They have many LED bulbs in both 3000 K and 2700 K. I use 2700K bulbs exclusively in my home, and the warm white light they provide is an excellent replacement for incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs. Never purchase LED lighting without knowing the color temperature of the lights.

If you’re skeptical that the color temperature of LEDs is an important issue, I suggest you purchase a 2700K bulb and a 4000K or 5000K bulb with the same output lumens and compare them in your home. I believe that you will much prefer the 2700K lighting. If 2700K lighting is best for your home, then why should it not be best for outdoor lighting as well?

Besides, most streetlighting is currently high pressure sodium (HPS), which is inherently non-blue-rich. You will find that 2700K LED lights offers better color rendering than HPS without the need to go to even bluer lights.

If you have ever been irritated at night by an oncoming vehicle with those awful “blue” headlights, you’ve experienced firsthand why blue-rich light in our nighttime environment must be minimized.

Why are 4000K and 5000K LED lights so prevalent? They are easier and cheaper to manufacture, but with increased demand of 2700K and 3000K LED lights, economies of scale will reduce their cost, which today are generally slightly higher than blue-rich LEDs.

Now, a bit more about why blue light at night can be detrimental to human health, and the primary reason why the AMA issued a guidance on this subject.

In addition to image-forming rods and cones, there exist non-image-forming retinal cells in the human eye called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) that help regulate our circadian rhythms. Studies have shown that blue light is far more disruptive to our circadian rhythms than redder light (Lockley et al. 2003).

Now, on to the environment. Using a clever technique that compared sky brightness at several locations on several nights both with and without snow cover, Fabio Falchi (Falchi 2011) determined that at least 60% of light going up into the night sky is direct waste lighting, and 40% or less is reflected light. This is as good an argument as any that we still have a long way to go towards using only full-cutoff luminaires that do not produce any direct uplight. Blue light scatters much more in the night sky than red light, and this is due to Rayleigh scattering which tells us that the amount of scattering is proportional to the inverse of the wavelength of light to the fourth power, σs ∝ 1 / λ4. This also explains why the daytime sky is blue.

Bluer wavelengths of light thus increase artificial sky glow to a much greater extent than redder wavelengths do. Not only is an increase in blue light bad for astronomy, but its impact on the natural world is likely to be adverse as well.

Falchi recommends a total ban of wavelengths shorter than 540 nm for nighttime lighting, both outdoor and indoor. He goes on to say that, at the very least, no more light shortward of 540 nm should be allowed than that currently emitted by high pressure sodium lamps, lumen for lumen.